Bangladesh is focusing on decent work issues such as job creation, social protection, and social dialogue. The priorities for Bangladesh have been chosen on the basis of participatory assessment of current challenges through stakeholder consultations involving a wide range of constituents and other interested parties. These challenges include high unemployment rates among youth, and especially among those with higher levels of education; high and stagnating income inequality; low productivity in some sectors; slow improvement in the occupational safety and health situation and working conditions; as well as inadequate opportunity for social dialogue in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is fully supportive of the ILO’s Decent Work agenda and implemented two Decent Work Country Programmes so far covering the periods 2006-2009 and 2012-2015. To mitigate these challenges, the DWCP for Bangladesh focuses on four key areas, which include skills development and green growth; promotion of safe and clean working environments; social dialogue between government, employers and workers; and social protection for all workers and vulnerable groups including protection against climate change.

Decent Work Country Programme can make a major contribution to the socio-economic development of Bangladesh. The new DWCP for Bangladesh is results-oriented and coordinated with Bangladesh’s national policy documents and global development initiatives such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).